Tuesday, January 27, 2015

Des Moines, Iowa. We're here in America's corn hole, I mean corn basket, this afternoon at the annual Freedom Summit, also known as Steve King's Fuck You Immigrants, Muslims, Gays and Anyone Who Isn't a White Redneck Asshole Lollapalooza. This is where potential Republican presidential contenders come to prove their bona fides to the GOP's most droolingly right-wing voters and hopefully get that much coveted Iowa bump.

However it's not the line-up of presidential hopefuls that are the talk of the event, but Iowa's own Joni Ernst, the freshman senator who delivered the first of five fulsome GOP rebuttals to President Obama's State of the Union address. The pig castrater from Red Oak has inadvertently uncorked something of a pissing contest with her woebegone tale of childhood poverty — poverty so deep it required $460,000 in government subsides — including the heartbreaking account of wearing plastic bread wrappers over her one good pair of shoes. Now everyone is regaling the press with Dickensian tales of brutal childhood hardship. Here's a small sampling from those willing to speak to us:

"Bread wrappers? That ain't nuthin'! We was so poor we wore bread for shoes. My poor mama would git herself up at four in the mornin' and start bakin' our shoes. 'Come in here chillun and put your dogs in them buns an' git on to school' she'd say. Then we'd walk five miles to school in our bread shoes. We ate 'em for lunch. Then we'd walk on home barefoot. Took me twenty years 'for I could eat bread without mud on it."

"Well we were so durn poor our little town couldn't even afford a town drunk. We had this one guy who just pretended to be drunk about half the time."

"You want me to tell you what poor is? We were so fucking poor the panhandlers gave us spare change. My pop's best job was holding the 'will work for food' sign for the homeless guy."

"Oh my, we were so poor that our mama would tell us, 'You kids go out there and foller them squirrels before it gits dark and find where they're buryin' them acorns and bring 'em home.' Then we'd bring the acorns home and mama would make us all a nice bowl of hot water and acorn soup."

Of course there are some who still are a bit unclear on the concept.

"Oh dear, yes, as a young lad I faced very great hardship. Father made a disastrous investment and found it expedient to sell our summer house on Cape Cod. We were forced to winter in a rented villa in Hawaii for three torturous years. The following year pater auctioned my polo pony, and Biff and Skipper and the rest of the chaps at prep mocked me mercilessly. 'No Polo DuPont' they called me. It still rankles to this very day."

Fortunately, the Republicans still have time to work this all out and prove to the middle class and working poor that they really, really care about them. The empathy workshop starts at 2:00 pm, entitled "Bread Wrappers for Everyone." Watch out, Democrats.

Monday, January 19, 2015

Washington, DC. Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren may not be seeking the nomination for president in 2016, but her populist message is being adopted by hopefuls on both sides of the aisle early on here in 2015. The most recent politician to do so is former Massachusetts governor and two-time presidential also-ran, Mitt Romney.

Mr. Romney, who in 2012 became the poster boy for corporate rapacity and nonchalant, well-bred indifference to the poor and middle class, has since experienced something of an epiphany when it comes to income inequality.

Addressing hundreds of well-heeled Republican National Committee members, and potential donors, recently in San Diego who had for some reason suddenly appeared aboard the aircraft carrier Midway, Mr. Romney made it clear that his focus would be on, as he called it, "the scourge of poverty."

Mr. Romney made it clear, between well-written one-liners, that to regain the White House Republicans must show a willingness to lift all people out of poverty, and that only Republicans are capable of accomplishing this economic and social justice turnaround. Although there were no particulars given as to how the GOP, notorious among the poor as the heavy-handed wielder of that so-called "scourge," would bring about this change, some possible solutions are cutting capital gains taxes, lowering the corporate tax rate and eliminating antiquated programs that keep the poor in bondage, like Meals on Wheels.

However, the biggest surprise of the evening came when Mr. Romney announced to the stunned audience that he would be selling his $12,000,000 La Jolla estate and moving into a double-wide trailer.

"I'm running for president for Pete's sake!" the former governor exclaimed.

The Romney's three story, 8,000 sq. ft.double-wide trailer sits on 14 acres in Napa Valley, has 8 bedrooms, 10 baths, an olympic-sized indoor swimming pool, a bowling alley, a theater, two helipads and of course a car elevator.

Sunday, January 11, 2015

Washington, DC. In a stroke of amazing good fortune, Konajournal has obtained a secretly recorded meeting between Republican Representatives Joe Barton and Louis Gohmert, both of the Lone Star State of Texas. The conversation took place during lunch between the two congressmen at a Waco Mexican restaurant, Que La Chinga, and concerns their plans to deal with the David Duke scandal that fellow representative, Steve Scalise of Louisiana, is now embroiled in. We present it here unedited.

"Louis, we got us a peck of trouble right here with this Scalise deal. I mean, no sooner do we get them reins of power back in our hot little hands and we're like to get bucked right off and wind up with a mouthful of dirt. We gotta stay on that sumbitch til the bell, old son."

"Well, I guess we just need to make it clear to our base that we got no truck with them neo-Nazis and Klan boys."

"That is our base, you idjit!"

"Oh yeah. Hey I know what! We make us a mess of tee shirts that say 'Je suis Scalise'!"

"Naw, that won't work. Everyone will think it says 'Jesus Scalise', except for a few of them boys down in Louisiana and they don't read nothin' anyhow."

"Oh yeah. Well... hey I know what! We get him to pal around with that nigger doctor, Ben Carson!"

"That won't help. Carson's a Republican... and stop saying nigger!"

"I can't help it! It just comes natural. I mean I switched to niggra, then colored folks, then Black and now African-American. I just don't know what to call them folks."

"Well just call 'em 'them folks' then."

"Okay. Well, maybe if we just ignore this whole mess it'll go away. Anyhow, them media fellers are easy to put on a new scent. Just holler 'squirrel'!"

"You got that right, but we got another problem."

"What's that?"

"Well, seems ol' Steve got himself a bit of tattooing on him a few years ago."

"That ain't no big deal. I got one says 'Mom' right here on my arm!"

"Yeah, well, Scalise has a tattoo across his back. I mean across his whole back."

"What is it?"

"Confederate flag."

"Holy shit!"

"Yep, and underneath it says 'The South will rise again'."

"Holy shit! Well, we just tell him to keep his damn shirt on!"

"Yeah, but that ain't all. He's got another one, tattoo of the greatest general this country's ever known."

"You mean..."

"Yep he's got a tattoo of General Robert E. Lee... right on his bum."

"On his bum? Now why would he put Robert E. Lee on his bum?"

"Well, he didn't mean no disrespect. Seemed like a good idea at the time."

"Well hell. Okay. Here's the deal. He just has to take a shower with his clothes on. There's cameras everywhere these days. I mean there could be one down there in the drain."

"Well, that'll work. Except we got one more problem."

"What's that?"

"Well, seems Steve got real drunk one night and got a tattoo on his Joe Willie."

"Hell you say! On his Joe Willie?"

"Yep. And it says, Lord help us, 'Don't tread on me.'"

"Holy shit! That musta hurt!"

"Yep. Though most times it just says 'Do me.'"

"Huh?"

"You know, unless it's all stretched out, all you can read is 'do me.' Can't read the rest of it."

"Well that ain't no big deal."

"The hell it ain't! He whips that thing out in the Congressional bathroom there's no tellin' what could happen."

"Holy shit. You're right! Okay. Here's the plan. Steve Scalise takes a shower with his clothes on and he wears Depends when he's on the Hill."

About Me

Kona Lowell is the author of The Solid Green Birthday & Other Fables and Don't Pet the Sharks: Advice, Observations & Snark from the Big Island, Hawaii. Also a musician, Kona's newest project is No Empty Sky, the CD titled "Empire."